Finally....Those February Pictures

This year was the year that I turned 30. I decided that I didn't want to dwell on that thought so we decided to do something really fun so that I would have something to look forward to. So the day after my birthday we loaded everyone into the new Pilot and we headed to Cali-forn-I-A! The kids did really well in the car and the drive went really smoothly. We got to L.A. in the evening and checked into our hotel and then we told the kids that we had a surprise for them. We drove up to a castle and they got really excited.

We went to the Medieval Time Dinner! It was a lot of fun but the kids forgot about the dinner part because they were way too busy watching the nights battle!

The next morning we got up and had a nice hot breakfast at our hotel and we headed to Disneyland!!! We were prepared for rain and unfortunately it rained. It really rained. That is the bad part but the good part is that not a whole lot of people like to be at Dinseyland in that kind of rain so we got to walk on to a lot of the rides and some of them we were able to just stay on the ride for a second turn. Gratefully we managed to stay pretty dry with the rain ponchos that we borrowed from our friends and our coats. When we got to the park we asked the kids where they wanted to go first but the last time we went Makenzi was 3 1/2 and Eli was about the age that Gavin is now so they had no idea where they wanted to go. Me personally, I like to head directly to Space Mountain! Eli had no idea what to expect and I didn't really know how to warn him that this was going to be a really fast ride in the dark so I just told him to hold on tight and I held onto him tight! I didn't really know if he liked it or not when we got off. He didn't really have much to say. I was glad that the kids were willing to try everything, it meant that Spencer and I got to go on everything that we wanted to. We actually stayed until the park closed. The last ride that we went on was Splash Mountain.


Even Gavin had fun riding the rides. He really got into it, he really wants to be big like his sister and brother.
Makenzi was a great help with entertaining/chasing Gavin. He didn't have a lot of opportunities to get out of the stroller!
Eli got to participate in the Jedi knight training! He was a lot of fun to watch because he really got into it! We have a great video of him fighting Darth Vader!
We spent 3 fun filled days at Disneyland making wonderful family memories! On the 4th day in California we headed down to San Deigo.
Spencer never got to see the ocean as a kid so he really wanted to stop at this pier and let the kids see the ocean in real life. Makenzi loved finding shells. Now she has quite the collection. We also had fun running from the waves. Spencer took the kids closer to the water and lets just say that well...they got wet!
We left L.A. with the idea in mind that we would drive to Sea World and get there right when they opened. We did take that pit stop at the pier but we really didn't stay there for long so we thought that we would still get to Sea World shortly after it opened. Well, we had to wait in line for forever (45min) just to park. Sea World was having a promotion that when you purchased a one day admission you could get a second for free. This wasn't our original plan so we didn't have a hotel in San Deigo but we decided to go for it! I'm so glad that we did because the first day went by really fast!
Don't worry, in this picture the trainer isn't in the whale's mouth! That incident happened in Orlando the week after we were in San Deigo.
That night after Sea World closed we found a hotel for a great deal and it turned out to be a newer hotel. It was great and had a wonderful breakfast. But, after we checked in Spencer and I were trying to get all of the suitcases into the room and everything situated and the kids were being a little rowdy so I handed the remote to Makenzi and asked her to find a show for them to watch. Mistake. Right as Spencer walked over to help her she selected to purchase the movie The Princess And The Frog for an added charge to the room of $15. Smile! The next day at Sea World we watched some more shows and then the kids really wanted to go on the rides. I know that when my kids are in soaking wet clothes, nobody is happy. So right before we left the park they went on the rides and got soaking wet! I'm glad that they had fun. A couple of weeks after we got home from our California trip we took the kids to see Walking With Dinosaurs. Talk about being spoiled rotten! Really we had seen the commercials for it while living in Texas and thought that it would be fun so since it was coming to Tucson we couldn't pass it up!
It was really neat. All of the kids really loved it and they didn't even get scared. Just kidding I was confident that they wouldn't be scared after all they went on the Tower of Terror at Disneyland!